The Chains that Break
by Ken-Zero
Summary: KiGo. An AU/crossover set in David Weber's Honorverse. Kim's been inducted into a new clandestine organization dedicated to halting the practice of genetic slavery galaxy-wide. Problem is, she's taking it a little too personally.
1. Chapter 1

The Chains That Break

by

Ken-Zero

Disclaimer: Kim Possible and all related characters are property of Disney. Honor Harrington, the universe, and all related characters are property of David Weber and BAEN books. The only original items in here are the plot and a couple of minor characters.

* * *

Kimberly Anne Possible, lieutenant (j.g.) in the Royal Manticoran Navy, held her head as high as she could while she walked in spite of the dread gnawing at her stomach.

The facade of pride was nothing new to her, nor was the sensation of impending doom. She just never felt both at the same time before, and the feeling was making her stomach do little somersaults in her abdomen as she strode through the halls of the Admiralty towards the office of one Vice Admiral of the Green Patricia Givens. The midnight-black of her uniform contrasted with the bright white lighting, seeming to absorb every stray photon without reflecting a single one; the hallway's dark brown, waist-high wood paneling and deep blue carpet giving the place an air of antiquity in spite of the copious amounts of technology visible.

Kim knew that lieutenants were never, ever summoned down these hallowed halls except for being scrubbed out of the service—at least, not if they weren't part of some admiral's entourage. So for her to be called down meant that either she had done something extremely stupid, an occurrence she could not remember happening...or her knowledge wasn't as complete as she thought it was.

Kim had returned a few months ago from her first post-midshipman cruise aboard the HMS _Derring-do_, a destroyer in the service of the Star Kingdom of Manticore; that cruise had lasted just over a year. She didn't think she'd done anything particularly glorious—the _Derring-do_ hadn't had a terribly exciting deployment—so Kim's being summoned was confusing at best. She tried to ignore the flock of gulls that had beaten the butterflies to her stomach and marched steadily onward.

She only passed a small number of others in the hallway, most of whom wore enough of the gold ribbon of command rank to remind Kim more of sunflowers than anything else; the mental diversion was welcome. She made a right turn at a T-junction, proceeding into an area defined by several signs to be the territory of Naval Intelligence.

She continued on, ignoring the itch she felt under the massive ponytail her long, sunrise-red hair was bound in at the base of her neck. While longer than military protocol dictated, she'd also been back dirtside for long enough to allow it to grow out; as a result, her hair, though at one time trimmed to an orderly length, had quickly grown enough to pass her shoulder blades again, as thick as it ever had been in the past. The itch, she felt, was a direct result of all the people she was sure were staring at her, some sympathetically, others not, as they watched some poor fool lieutenant walk to her doom.

The only bright side to her current sitch—_…uation_, she corrected herself mentally—was that she was, in fact, headed for the office of the lead officer for the Office of Naval Intelligence, instead of the representative from Saganami Island, Manticore's naval officer training institute. She took consolation from that fact, and curiosity helped drive the darkness of doubt from her. After all, what could ONI want with an average young officer like her?

_Guess I'll find out soon enough_, Kim thought, coming to a stop in front of a door that was like all the rest down this particular hall. The name plate proclaimed it to be the office she was looking for, and, taking a deep breath and settling her stomach as best she could, she reached out and pressed the announcer.

Perhaps three seconds passed before the speaker announced, "Come." The door slid open as Kim stepped forward and offered a salute, and Vice Admiral Patricia Givens, Second Space Lord, Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence, looked up from what seemed to be a small mountain of electronic paper.

"Ah, Kimberly." The second-ranking civilian head of the Royal Manticoran Navy said; her voice was lower than Kim was expecting, but at least it held the same Manticoran accent as Kim's own English. "Do sit down."

Kim obeyed, dropping her hand back to her side and taking the only chair on the entrance's side of the desk. She placed her hands in her lap, not daring to speak yet for fear that that nervous flutter would increase—or worse, give itself away.

Admiral Givens merely watched her for a few seconds, her own light green eyes studying the darker green of Kim's, before returning to the work on her desk, shifting through the various items until she apparently found what she was looking for. "I suppose you're wondering why I called you in. No doubt you weren't sure if this was going to be the end."

"Yes, ma'am," Kim responded, feeling every inch as if she were the seventeen years old she physically appeared to be, thanks to the standard prolong treatments, instead of the twenty-four T-years she actually was.

Admiral Givens must have detected some of her nervousness in spite of Kim's best efforts, because she smiled. "At ease, lieutenant. As a matter of fact, I called you here for just the opposite reason." She waited to see if Kim would respond to that, but when Kim didn't, she moved on. "Tell me," she said, "how much do you know of the current state of the galaxy?"

Kim felt like she was back at Saganami. That was the kind of question that usually got her classmates trapped in a "Gotcha!" moment of ignorance. "I'm not sure what you mean, ma'am," she answered carefully.

"I know your assignment just returned recently, lieutenant, but surely you weren't out of the loop while aboard."

"No, ma'am."

"So tell me, to the best of your ability, how things stand around the Kingdom."

Kim took a breath. "The shooting with Haven seems to be over, for one. We don't have any other real problems except for how much hardware Erewhon had when…they left." She very carefully did not say anything about the previous administration in her star nation's government, which had done a very good job of scaring their interstellar neighbor away. "A lot of us suspect that with Duchess Harrington in charge of Eighth Fleet, nobody in the galaxy, in their right mind, would challenge us."

Admiral Givens nodded once. "Back to Haven…are you aware of the recent proceedings?"

Kim blinked. "I know that, just recently, their president has been offering the olive branch with one hand while hiding the pulser behind her back…"

This time the admiral shook her head. "I'm going to tell you something, Kimberly, and it does not leave this room. Is that understood?" At Kim's meek nod, she continued. "Haven's Secretary of State had been corrupting every communique issued from President Pritchart to the Queen. Before he died, he apparently had some very complete designs on taking the office for himself, once he could engineer her failure and ensure his own good standing with the people. Recently, though, he and his brother were killed by some drunk in a speeder." Her voice told Kim exactly what she thought of that "accident," and the young girl nodded.

"The resources, though, that it took to put together that sort of attempted coup are…formidable, and it's our suspicion that there was outside influence on this setup. Granted, there are undoubtedly elements with Haven itself—and probably here at home—that would rather the war not end until one side or the other is ground away to nothing...but they don't have the capability, financially speaking, to orchestrate something like this. The Andermani are still too taken with Dame Honor's stint with their navy to try to interfere, and they're smarter than that, regardless. The Sollies couldn't care less about our existence, with one exception: Manpower Unlimited."

Kim blinked. "The slavers?"

"The same," the admiral confirmed, her expression grim. "Manpower has the kind of resources to buy their way into damn near anything they want, and make sure their tracks are covered. By keeping us and Haven at each other's throats, they keep themselves in the dark. Realistically speaking, mounting operations against them would be one of the very few things that would actually allow us to form an alliance with Haven. I'm sure you know they're just as anti-slavery as we are."

She stopped for a moment, and Kim took that time to digest what she'd been told. So far, she felt less like she was being dressed down, and more like...like she was being briefed. The flutters in her stomach ceased suddenly as her curiosity fully took over.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but...why are you telling me this if it's not to leave the room?"

"Getting there, Kimberly," Admiral Givens said with half a grin. "As I was saying, Manpower doesn't like the idea of us and Haven teaming up against them, so they've taken steps to reduce that possibility. The Powers That Be have decided that it's time for us to take the fight back to them. At best," she went on, holding up one hand, "we secure ourselves another ally and end this war. At worst, we stunt the operations of a notorious group of genetic slavery thugs." She brought her other hand up to contrast her points, then folded them together on the desktop. "To that end, we've been culling the best and brightest out of Saganami for additional training in the hope of organizing a clandestine force of sorts to take the fight to Mesa, and by extension, Manpower."

Kim almost felt flattered—almost—but she knew there was more to come. Still, her curiosity grew by leaps and bounds, and ideas and assumptions began to come together in her head.

"I called you here, Kimberly, in the hope that you would agree to be part of this special force." The admiral held up a hand just as Kim opened her mouth to do just that. "Understand this: what I'm looking for is someone willing to go deep under cover. Deep enough that you probably won't have any support from the Star Kingdom at all, beyond what you have in your mission parameters. You will be on your own until your mission is accomplished."

Admiral Givens' suddenly serious tone did little to stem the flow of Kim's curiosity, but she made herself think on the warning and all its implications for over a minute. "I understand," she said finally.

"Good. I don't mean to scare you, but I do need you to be aware of the realities involved." She rose, walked to the door, and pressed a thumb to a section of the frame. Kim heard the faint whine of capacitors charging before Admiral Givens took her thumb away. "Now that we're totally secure, I can officially ask. Are you willing to accept this mission?"

Kim smiled easily, her green eyes shining. "Absolutely."

Admiral Givens returned the smile. "I thought as much. Your profile," she continued, crossing back to her desk and sitting again, "suggested a willingness to tackle impossible problems...and showed that you had a history of solving them."

Kim waved a hand. "No big—uh...sorry, ma'am." She blushed deeply as her pre-Navy years resurfaced.

"Don't worry about it, Kimberly. I did tell you to be at ease, remember?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"For the moment, I think I can stand a little informality," the admiral said wryly. "Nevertheless, what I've already told you is the limit on what we know." It wasn't, and they both knew that, but _some_ appearances had to be maintained, in spite of Admiral Givens' word on informality. "How well-versed are you in espionage tactics?"

"That...wasn't something they really covered at Saganami Island," Kim replied hesitantly, going with the quick change of subject easily.

"Mmm." The admiral picked a seemingly-random datacard off her desk from under the piles of junk and slid it into the only clear spot: the card reader. "It says in your file that you received exactly one black spot on your record the entire time you were there."

Kim blushed again. "I...got into a fight, ma'am."

"So it says. Thrashed him pretty good, too, it seems?"

The blush went even darker. "Yes, ma'am."

"It says you know a rather remarkable number of fighting styles, most of them from Old Earth. Why didn't you study _coup de vitesse_ instead?"

"I didn't like it as much," Kim admitted easily. "It's like old languages versus English. I'm more interested in what it's based on, than the end result. Plus," she grinned, "shifting between styles every few seconds confuses the hell out of my sparring partners."

"I suppose I can see that. So why the fight outside the sparring area?"

Kim hesitated before answering. "He...he was trash-talking Lady Harrington, ma'am."

"And you thought she couldn't take care of herself?"

"She wasn't anywhere near at the time, but...it was driving me crazy."

"Why?" The admiral leaned forward in her chair.

A sigh escaped Kim before she could stop it. "Because I had a crush on her," she explained.

Patricia Givens blinked once before sitting back again. The silence hung between them as the admiral checked and rechecked Kim's profile, and finally she turned back to Kim, who looked like she clearly wanted to be invisible. "Forgive me for asking this, but your profile makes no note. You are attracted to women?"

"...Yes, ma'am," Kim said. She felt no shame in that, of course; homosexuality was far from unheard of in either the Star Kingdom or the Republic of Haven. She felt shame because of how it had affected her judgment.

"I see. Why hide it?"

"I didn't, ma'am, until I started at Saganami Island. My class was the first with a significant number of Grayson recruits, and I knew that I wouldn't exactly be the most comfortable person to be around with them...so I tried to keep my preferences from being public knowledge." Grayson was a theocratic planet whose people were so conservative they made Kim's prudish home of Manticore look positively decadent.

"I see," she said again. "And after? What about your middie cruise, and so on?"

"Those aren't exactly the time to pursue romantic interests, ma'am," Kim answered with a small, self-effacing grin.

"Good to hear, Kimberly." Admiral Givens closed Kim's file and looked the girl square in the eye. "Understand this: What I am looking for is someone like you. You're a quick study, which leaves me with no worries on your being able to pick up the concepts." She paused, and Kim nodded. "I've chosen a handful of your class—and _only_ your class—as potential agents for a small, new organization. As I'm sure you've guessed by now, you're on that list. You will be trained in undercover tactics and espionage, and I will be sending you to a very sensitive area. Know that if you accept, you will have next to no contact with the Star Kingdom until I, and only I, deem your mission accomplished. Are you prepared to accept that?"

Kim's curiosity exploded into full-on excitement, and she felt her whole body start to quiver, but she squashed the movement with an iron will and forced her face to remain as impassive as she could make it. "I am."

"I will not pretend that this won't be dangerous. Espionage is a life-or-death game, and should you be discovered, you will not receive any support; your survival will be in your own hands."

"I understand," Kim replied, and she did, even though she wanted more than anything to get right to her new job.

Admiral Givens nodded once, sharply, then held out a hand, a smile on her face. "Then welcome to the Hounds."

--

Kim almost couldn't believe her luck as she practically danced on air back to her quarters, far and away from the primary Navy building, on Manticore. Her mind was awash with excitement, a marked contrast from earlier in the day while approaching the ONI office.

_Admiral Givens wanted me for undercover ops! And I'm gonna be hunting down Manpower! Ohmigod this is so totally _spankin'! _I just wish I could tell..._

Kim's very nature stood at odds with almost everything that Manpower Unlimited represented, hence her excitement at taking them on. She had spent almost all of her teenage years with her best friend Ron Stoppable, constantly tackling odd jobs, doing favors for anyone that asked of her, and standing up against perceived injustices—especially when she and her family had moved, following her father's job, off of Manticore for a few years to Saginaw, a planet in the nigh-lawless Silesian Confederacy. The Silesian authorities turned such a blind eye to their systems that the entire sector was practically run by the criminal element, and it was there that Kim's heroic nature had fully matured. Indeed, it was partly because of her vigilantism that her father had had to relocate back to Manticore. Kim had decided that she needed to be part of something larger to effect greater change in the region; her conscience demanded it of herself.

Upon her family's return to Manticore, Kim had informed her parents of a decision she'd actually been thinking on since just before they first left. She told them she was joining the Navy as an officer, and they had been nothing but supportive after their initial, somber reaction; after all, a career in the military, these days, was not exactly a promise of a long life.

Still, Doctor James Possible and his wife, Doctor Anne Possible, respected their oldest child's decision; Kim's younger brothers, budding geniuses in their own right, had teased her about it, saying that she was less likely to catch a girl in the Service than she was walking about a street at night blindfolded. Kim, of course, had responded in kind, vowing that the Tweebs (as she less-than-affectionately called her brothers) were bothers she would be glad to be without, but she could admit now that she did miss them...and her parents.

Both of her parents were well-respected in their fields; her father worked for one of Manticore's top R&D companies for impeller drive technology, the centuries-old drive system that propelled every single starship that hoped to travel farther than in-system destinations. James Possible had been project lead on a couple of the more recent innovations that the military had adopted; it was people like him and his team that lent the Royal Manticoran Navy its technological edge over virtually any other contender.

Kim's mother was a neurosurgeon. That, in and of itself, would have suggested she was more intelligent than most, but most people didn't realize that Anne Possible, before marrying her college sweetheart, had earned her doctorate on Beowulf. That, plus her slightly more-than-professional friendship with one Dr. Alfred Harrington (the father of Admiral of the Red Lady Dame Honor Harrington, Duchess Harrington, Steadholder Harrington, and holder of a half-dozen other titles), meant Kim's mother was well-connected in some _very_ high social circles.

It was also because of that Beowulfian training that Anne passed to her children that Kim hated Manpower so much. Beowulf, home of the prolong treatments that convinced the human aging gene to "shut off" for a couple of centuries, was the foremost place in the known galaxy for medical research; it was considered second only to Mesa, home of Manpower, in advances in genetic engineering. Fears of a return of the Last War that had devastated Earth, using genetically-designed super soldiers, had convinced the entire planet of Beowulf to adopt a new medical ethics code banning excessive tampering with the human genome. As the Beowulf Code came into practice, a small group of separatists rejected the notion and were banished. They took up shop on Mesa, carving their business empire from the ground up.

The rest of the galaxy abhorred Manpower for its primary product: genetic slaves. Most of Manpower's business took place in the Solarian League, the largest, wealthiest, and oldest of the star nations; the Silesian Confederacy, Kim's old temporary home, was the other star nation known to do business with them. The League's officials often paid little attention to Manpower's business, preferring instead to look the other way while reaping the benefits of the various slave types the corporation produced.

As Admiral Givens had told Kim earlier, Manpower was a common enemy of both the Star Kingdom and the nascent Republic of Haven. Both nations had strictly outlawed slavery ages ago in the Cherwell Convention, and slavers were punished to the fullest extent of the law, often including death by shoving them through an airlock. In spite of the fact that the Solarian League was larger than both Haven and Manticore combined, Manticore's navy had at _least_ technological parity, while Haven's simply had a very very large number of ships. The combination was potent enough to worry Manpower, leading to Admiral Givens' suspicion that the company was behind the latest attempts to maintain open hostilities between the two nations.

_And getting this chance to shut down Manpower—or hurt them, at least—means this war between us and Haven can actually end, _Kim thought. The idea was very appealing, especially since another of her old friends had been caught on one of Haven's conquests early on in the war. She'd not heard any news, hide nor hair, of Monique since then, and she constantly worried for her friend's safety, and that of Monique's family. An end to the war meant Kim could finally get a message through, which would ease that part of her mind tremendously. But for that to happen, Kim had to do her job.

And her job had just gotten a _whole_ lot more interesting.

--

Over the course of the following month, Kim was subjected to a training regimen so focused and intense, she almost felt like she had back when she entered Saganami Island's campus for the first time.

Beginning the day after her meeting with Vice Admiral Givens, she'd been awoken by a message in her queue stating that she had to report in forty minutes. She almost hadn't made it; the resulting embarrassment only intensified when told by her instructor—a female, she had noted—to strip down to her skivvies. Kim had spent the rest of that day like that, and the next, and the next; on the fourth day, she'd managed to ride herd on her reaction enough to not even flinch, much less blush, when ordered to undress. At the drill instructor's satisfied nod, Kim knew she'd learned whatever it was she was supposed to learn from that peculiar exercise.

After the first week, which was filled with enough physical training to make even Kim sore—and she prided herself on her boundless energy and flexibility—she received crash training in what she dubbed Lying 101. She'd always been able to think quickly on her feet; it was one reason she was so successful in her pre-navy days, dealing with the increasingly unorthodox ways people in Silesia tried to skirt the already-loose laws. Her current instruction, though, gave her frameworks she could draw on in a pinch, bits of story she could cobble together to make a decent cover while under instant pressure.

Kim could remember the last story she'd had to come up with; it made her blush just thinking about the ridiculously risqué yarn she'd spun in her head while engaging in polite conversation with a random person at a diner. She knew the person wasn't exactly "random," but it _was_ someone she'd never seen before, which actually made it easier to fall back on the repository of random bits of tales she now possessed. It had turned into something of a game of one-upsmanship; the photogenic, convivial blonde woman with whom she sat, calling herself "Vivian," tried to make her own story into something obscure, to which Kim replied with an "anecdote" of ribald origins. The blonde looked aghast, then ashamed before recounting a similar story, but with more graphic detail. Kim fired back with a lurid description of her mythical first sexual encounter, which had shut the woman up for good.

After that came the requisite instruction that Kim had expected earlier. Among those items were how to actually remain inconspicuous; how to search for items in the environment that might give her away; what the best and most likely places to hide people and items were, and how to look for them; and so on. By the end of it, Kim found herself able to canvas a decently-sized room in about the same time it took for her to take off her boots.

The end of the training saw her back in Admiral Givens' office, except this time she was able to note the sheer number of devices hidden in corners, between books and binders, disguised as decorations, even hiding in the woodwork. Her attention refocused, though, when the admiral finished her obligatory time-wasting by setting more paperwork aside. "Welcome again, Lieutenant Possible."

"Thank you, ma'am." Kim was significantly less nervous this time around in the office.

"It seems you've taken to the training well," Admiral Givens remarked, studying what Kim guessed were reports from the small handful of instructors she'd seen over the last month. "I'm heartened to see that; about half the time we see potential agents take up to a year to learn everything you did in five weeks."

Kim blushed lightly at the implied compliment. "I just...didn't see it as especially difficult, ma'am."

"I noticed," the admiral replied dryly. "Still," she went on, her voice serious again, "I have to stress that quick thinking will save you as often as your training will. Always remember that, because it's when you freeze up that suspicion begins to grow. Keep a handle on your story, and use what you've got to flesh it out."

"Understood."

The Second Space Lord nodded. "In a few days, you will receive your first orders." She rose and went back to her door, thumbing the dampening field to life the same way she'd done when Kim had first been in the office. "We'll be sending you to a smaller planet called Orthua; it lies, generally, halfway between Mesa itself and the Talbott Cluster." The cluster was a loose grouping of planets located to galactic northwest of the Solarian League; Kim knew that the Star Kingdom was attempting to improve its diplomatic relations with some planets in the cluster, and that it had something to do with the discovery of a new wormhole terminus located therein.

"Orthua has been off the radar for ages," the admiral went on, "because of its relatively low importance; it was settled about nine hundred years ago, but four hundred years after that, Manpower set up a slave breeding ground. They kept it low-profile, too. We didn't even know about it until some of our survey ships came back with scans after the recent fracas in Talbott."

Kim nodded slowly. "And I'm going there, instead of Mesa itself, because its secrecy is its best defense?"

"Precisely." If Admiral Givens was surprised at Kim's deduction, she hid it well. "It's also, as nearly as we can tell, a fairly significant operation; disrupt it, and we hamper Manpower's slave production by something like thirteen percent."

Kim's eyes widened. That was a _huge_ blow to a corporation that size. Keen on the idea, she asked, "How do I disrupt it?"

"We will be following your reports," Admiral Givens answered, "and we'll alert you when the time for the strike comes. You may do what you can on the inside, but when the alert arrives, you are to evacuate as far and as quickly as you can."

Swallowing, Kim nodded. That kind of order, she figured, meant one of two options: a nuclear strike on the facility, or kinetic bombardment; the former would feature the usual several megatons of brilliant energy from an unleashed hydrogen fusion reaction, while the latter would generate no radioactivity, instead relying on pure energy transfer from high-velocity, solid objects of incredible density. The idea of killing all the slaves in the facility didn't sit well with her, though, and she told the admiral as much.

"I understand," Givens replied gravely, "and I empathize; were it entirely up to me, I'd like to have them evacuated before commencing any kind of operation. Unfortunately, it's not entirely up to me, and we had to weigh the lives of those slaves over the capacity of Manpower to create more there for years to come."

_...And that's the worst part about being in command_, Kim thought uneasily. She wasn't sure she could make decisions like that—trading a small group of lives for the greater good, as it were. In fact, part of her mind, even right now, was trying to devise a way to get those slaves out before the strike came, a task the rest of her mind knew would be difficult at best, impossible at worst.

Finally Kim said, "Understood, Admiral."

Admiral Givens nodded, having watched Kim's expression during the brief internal discomfort; apparently, she was satisfied with the result. "Very well, Lieutenant Possible. You will be departing as soon as you receive your orders. Any further questions?" When Kim shook her head, she held out her hand, and Kim took it in a brief handshake. "Good luck and God speed, Kimberly. Dismissed."

--

A/N: Well, so begins a new tale that I hope garners some enjoyment. I'll be doing my best to explain unfamiliar ideas as we go along so that there's not one chapter of pure information; if you can't wait, there's always wikipedia, where damn near _everything_ in the Honorverse is explained. Just search for that particular term (and by that, I mean "honorverse").

Second note: yes, this is actually all planned out, so there won't be the ridiculous delays as there have been in my other works. Cheers!


	2. Chapter 2

The Chains that Break

by

Ken-Zero

Disclaimer: Kim Possible and all related characters are property of Disney. Honor Harrington, the universe, and all related characters are property of David Weber and BAEN books. The only original items in here are the plot and a couple of minor characters.

* * *

2

A sharp hiss signaled the collapse of the airtight seal, and the boarding ramp descended smoothly on its hydraulics. Warm, humid air rolled up and into the passenger compartment, and Kim Possible stood and stretched right along with the small handful of other people riding with her. She tried to quiet her racing thoughts as she filed into line, taking the third place out of eight. As they proceeded down the ramp, she thought back two days previous, when she had received her actual orders.

--

Kim's initial excitement over her new assignment had cooled markedly in the three days between her last meeting with Admiral Givens and the time she actually received her summons. She was not getting cold feet about it, but the _reality_ of the situation was starting to sink in, and it was a sobering effect.

Still, she put on her best expression as she approached the building she was supposed to visit; the Manticoran Marine House was a marked contrast to the Naval building she'd visited only a few days previous, short and squat; that alone made it unusual in a civilization where counter-gravity technology enabled _real_ skyscrapers. Still, she knew, by its unusual style, that she'd made it to the right place. Following her orders, she entered, rode a lift to the fourth floor, and was somewhat startled to see an operations center when the doors opened.

Monitors lined the walls, input panels sitting right below them; dials, keypads, switches, displays, and other pieces of equipment took up every square inch of available space. There was even a large holo-tank display at the far end of the room, and Kim saw that it was displaying what looked like a territorial map of the galaxy. All the outputs provided enough light to see; in fact, there was no normal lighting whatsoever that Kim could see. The ceiling of the room, or what she could see of it beyond the cabling, hanging displays, and light truss work, vanished into featureless darkness.

In front of the tank, staring up into its display, was an absolute giant of a man; Kim guessed he easily topped two meters in height, and he was probably around a hundred and fifty kilos; from her position he looked nearly as broad across the shoulders as he was tall.

She took her first timid step inside, and as soon as her boot landed on the floor the man turned. "Ah, Lieutenant Possible!" he boomed; his voice was a pleasant baritone that still was resonant enough to rattle around in her chest. "Come in, come in!"

Heartened by his apparently cheerful greeting, Kim continued in, stopping a few paces away to salute the man; in close proximity she could see his uniform and the rather impressive amount of ribbons adorning his left breast. "Colonel," she said simply.

Lieutenant Colonel Mavery Briggins, Director of Special Forces, Royal Manticoran Marines, returned Kim's salute. "At ease, Lieutenant Possible," he said when finished. Kim relaxed, and he continued speaking. "I'm sure Admiral Givens has told you the basics of your current mission."

"Disrupting Manpower's satellite operation on the planet Orthua," Kim replied succinctly, which got an amused chuckle out of the colonel.

"That's it exactly. Now, come with me for a moment." Without waiting to see if Kim would follow, he strode back to the holo-tank and its galactic display. He reached into it and made a hand gesture, Kim guessed, because two seconds later the map colored itself. A great chunk of it turned red, with the stars appearing as brightly-colored specks in the darker background color; another area turned bright green, but this was far smaller than the red. Another turned light blue, again smaller than the red. By the time the map was finished, the red still totally dominated any other color in terms of volume, but the variety of colors was astounding.

"This is, essentially, a current political map of the galaxy. We are here." He pointed to the green, and it blinked once before a label containing "Manticore" popped up above it. "Based on that, I'm sure you can guess what the other major colors are. Here is your destination: Orthua." He reached out again, this time tapping one of the motes of light near the edge of the red space. The star blinked just like the area representing Manticore's territory had, and a similar label appeared with its name. "As you can tell, it's well away from any nearby world in the League; in fact, the closest inhabited planet to it is Lynx."

"That's where the new wormhole terminus is, isn't it sir?" Kim asked.

"Precisely. And that, Kimberly, is what's going to make your mission a whole lot easier."

Kim tilted her head slightly to one side. "How so?"

"Because your cover is a business interest from Lynx itself," he said. "I have your briefing materials on my desk. Basically, you are going to represent a dummy corporation that operates as a legal cover for one of more...questionable interests. The reason you are there is to negotiate a long-term purchase agreement with that particular facility, because of the very fact that it is off the beaten path. And if we didn't know this place existed until the _Hexapuma_ got back recently with updated star charts, what's to say, to Mesa, that we _still_ don't know it's there?"

"I...think I understand, sir."

"I'm sure you do. And if you don't, you will soon." He smiled reassuringly before grasping the star for Orthua in between two fingers and pulling. The rest of the galaxy flew away, while the star centered itself and zoomed in, showing Kim that it was only orbited by three planets.

"The system itself is unremarkable; little in the way of exotic natural resources, only the second planet is habitable, not even an asteroid belt for mining purposes." He shrugged. "We guess that's why Manpower found it so tempting a site; with so little to offer, who would even want to look there? But now that we've found them...it's time to show them what happens when they mess with us."

--

Kim had spent that night familiarizing herself with her new cover identity; the next morning, she was on a ship bound for the wormhole to Lynx.

En route, she spent a moment to marvel at the sheer amount of traffic the space around her home system contained. Manticore and its sister planets, Sphinx and Gryphon, lay at the nexus of no fewer than seven wormholes. As a result, enough spacecraft went through the Manticore Junction that, by levying a tariff on all shipping, Manticore swiftly became an economic powerhouse; that was aided by the sheer size of its own merchant marine and the amount of interstellar shipping that went through it. The capital the system generated enabled Manticore to invest heavily in research and development, and to Kim's day it remained at the forefront of the galaxy in several notable fields.

That same technical edge is what gave its military a fighting chance against Manticore's more massive interstellar neighbor, the Republic of Haven. Until recently, it had been known as the People's Republic, a titanic, socialist nightmare of a bureaucracy at first headed by generations of Legislaturalist families, and then, for a short time, by a totalitarian "People's Commission" that made Old Earth's Communist Russia look like a freewheeling democracy. A military coup had installed the current republican administration. Relations had begun to thaw between Manticore and Haven until the recent round of fighting.

Kim's mission was to find out why Manpower had intervened, and to put a stop to it.

She put her wandering thoughts to the side as she made her way down the boarding ramp, trying to draw up as much of the personality of her new alter ego as she could. By the time she made it to the bottom of the ramp, she was fully immersed in her new role as Keilyn Pelargic, Vice President of Finance for one Donovan Drumbirell, CEO of Interstellar Securities, Ltd.

Of course, as she cleared the landing well for the transport ship, which was perched atop the spaceport itself, and saw the city proper, she didn't have to act to look like an impressed tourist.

The city, dubbed Derare by all the signs Kim saw promoting its safety, was virtually spotless. A handful of skyscrapers, aided by counter-grav technology, stretched upward, breaking up the bright-blue dome of sky that stretched overhead as far as she could see. A number of smaller buildings, impressively tall on their own but still dwarfed by the huge ones, filled in the space around the skyscrapers, with broad thoroughfares slicing between them at regular intervals and breaking the cityscape into manageable blocks. The overbearing amounts of gray and white were broken up every so often by squares of greenery that Kim could see from her elevated position. A handful of ground vehicles were trundling along, looking like insects from the distance—and illustrating just how huge the skyscrapers were. The city as a whole appeared to operate quickly and efficiently—and quietly, Kim noted.

She followed the rest of her similarly gawking companions down, a small part of her mind thankful that she'd worn light clothing for the planet's summery heat and humidity. She and her group were led down through a customs official, who looked about as falsely enthusiastic as a human could get, and into the city proper. Up close, most of the architecture was even more impressive; the construction was on par for a League world, all square corners and glassy sides, and yet each building was different, erected with its own style that nonetheless blended almost perfectly with those around it.

Kim's group entered one of the lower buildings, and she wasn't at all surprised to see nothing there but a desk, a person behind it, and several elevators. Their guide, who until that time had been chatting merrily away with his usual shtick, promptly disappeared, leaving Kim and the other seven travelers standing there.

After a brief check-in period, in which Kim found the concierge to be relentlessly annoying, she found herself alone in her hotel room. She busied herself by unpacking and putting away all of her supplies, of which she had a large amount. When she finished, she collapsed on the bed and heaved a sigh.

_What am I even _doing_ here? Do they really think I can play a spy?_ She draped an arm across her eyes. _Do _I _really think I can play a spy?_

If she was sure of one thing, it was that having a month of preparation did not mean she knew as much as she needed to know about her new job. She was not too keen on having to learn from her mistakes as she went along, as it often turned out that spies kind of died if they screwed up.

She had been excited and cocky when Admiral Givens had first made the offer, sure…but inherently she believed that anything was possible for her; it was her family motto, in fact. "Anything is possible for a Possible," her father had said, as long as she could remember, and even up until being sent on active duty she'd heard the phrase at least once a week while communicating with her family.

The thoughts of her family gave her pause in her self-recrimination. Her twin younger brothers were already heading quickly in their father's direction, displaying genius-level aptitude in all things math- and science-related. She could remember when they'd once managed to send one of her stuffed animals into orbit with a home-made rocket. She'd been livid at the time; in retrospect, of course, it was actually really funny. She found herself smiling just thinking about it and wondering how quickly they would take over whatever firm they ended up working for.

_Well_, she decided, _if they can be super astrophysicists, then there's no reason I can't be a spy, is there?_ She was fully aware that the comparison wasn't quite equal on both sides, but it worked to lift her spirits nonetheless, and she vaulted off the bed, fetching her mission documents and taking one more look at them. "No sense in being _totally_ unprepared," she muttered to herself.

--

_Well,_ Kim mused to herself much later, _I don't think any amount of briefing could have prepared me for this_. She was wandering the streets of Derare, careful to not range too far from her hotel. It was, after all, a new environment, and she did not want to get lost.

She noted that her first impression on leaving the spaceport hadn't been at all inaccurate: the construction was huge, every smooth surface gleamed in either sunlight or moonlight, and there wasn't so much as a scrap of refuse to be seen. There weren't many pedestrians; even the vehicle traffic, both ground and air, was light. It struck Kim as simply odd for an area so obviously metropolitan; she'd grown up in one of the less-populous regions of Manticore, but she was also no stranger to the megalopolises of all three worlds in her home system; while Derare seemed to be as elaborately planned and constructed, it didn't look to her like it had the population to support itself, since she couldn't see any of it.

_Then again…maybe they're all just staying inside for the day._ For all she knew, some of the smaller buildings could be gigantic apartment complexes or the like.

Her wanderings took her into something resembling a downtown area; the difference was practically thrust in her face with a sudden glut of brightly-colored glowing signs, varied smells, and more people than she could count on both hands. She almost bumped into a bickering couple as they left, but managed to stop gawking long enough to avoid running into them; they appeared to not notice her at all. Everyone that she could see was dressed in what she assumed passed for the latest fashions in the League…though to Kim's Manticoran viewpoint, "dressed" was stretching the term's definition for some of the styles. Both the women and the men seemed content to barely cover areas most societies deemed inappropriate for public viewing. Kim felt herself blushing lightly as her gaze lingered appreciatively on more than a few of the women, but she tore her stare away before anyone really made any mention of it.

_I guess I need a new wardrobe if anyone's going to believe I'm from around here… _Kim continued her wandering; every so often, someone would give her a funny look for being a tourist, but she ignored them and moved on. Stopping at one of the myriad of shops lining the streets, she bought a relatively exotic concoction of meats and sauces to satisfy her quietly rumbling stomach; sadly, it looked a lot better than it tasted. Curiously, she was directed to sit down immediately after buying it, and she saw several signs near the entrance prohibiting bringing anything from inside the place, outside. She figured it wasn't worth testing to see what would happen if she disobeyed the signs, dropping her food remnants in a receptacle in the center of her little table, and decided to hit the streets again.

About an hour later—well past sunset—she'd made almost a complete tour of the area. Two things set off even more little warning flags in her mind that not all things were right in the city: she hadn't seen anything even remotely shady. No signs in back alleys quietly proclaiming the chance to get some cheap thrills, illicit drugs, or even an hour or three of physical pleasure. Kim wasn't naïve, and she knew that places like that existed even back home, but to see a total lack was a little unnerving.

She also hadn't seen any law enforcement whatsoever. Back on Manticore, there would usually be at least a minor police presence, if only to show they were patrolling and keeping an eye on the area. Here, though…she saw _nothing_, not even a parked groundcar. This made little sense, especially since a police state was her first guess for the lack of seedier establishments.

Making a mental note of everything she'd seen, she went back to her hotel, wrote her observations on actual paper, folded the sheet up several times, stuck it in her pillowcase, and went to bed, thoroughly exhausted after the long tour and longer trip.

--

The next day, awake and refreshed, Kim compiled her report for Colonel Briggins, using the notes she'd made the night before. She wracked her brain to come up with code words for certain things before giving up and writing it like the bored secretary she was supposed to be—right down to whining about there being no police to help guide her when she "got lost" during her tour. She sent the message off, and her terminal pinged a handful of seconds later, notifying her that it had reached "home" on Lynx. Satisfied, Kim turned her attention toward getting herself actually _in_ to the Manpower facility.

She spent another fifteen minutes perusing the business directories in the hotel's databases before finding a likely candidate: "Derare Professional Help Company." She punched the contact info into her communication terminal and was promptly greeted by a smiling woman in a recorded message. Kim listened to the various menu options before choosing the route that would get her in touch with a sales representative. Seconds later she sighed in relief at actually being able to talk to a real human.

"Good morning, and thank you for calling Derare Professional Help," the salesman said quickly. "What kind of help are you looking for?"

"I'm—well, actually," Kim hesitated. _Spill it now? Wait for in person?_ "I was wondering if I could actually come in, take a look around at your products first-hand…" She trailed off, hoping he would get the hint.

"You'd like to schedule a personal visit?" he repeated, sounding somewhat surprised.

"Yes…if I could? Is that unusual?"

"Not at all." Kim had to give him credit; he recovered quickly. "When would you like to come in?"

"As soon as I could, if I can." She made a face. "I just came in from Lynx yesterday, and if I spend too long here, my boss is going to think I'm just taking a vacation instead of doing what he sent me to do, and then I'll probably be out of a job, and _then_ what would I tell my girlfriend? Oh, she'd be so mad, it'd be the fourth one I've lost since I met her, and then she'll think I'm just not worth the maintenance because I can't even hold a job, much less a relationship, and then—" She had to fight to keep from grinning at how flustered he was starting to appear.

"Yes…well…we can't have that, now, can we?" He cleared his throat, then looked off-screen for a moment. "The nearest date we can get you in is…let's see. Today's booked…tomorrow…how about day after tomorrow? Two in the afternoon?"

"Really? That quickly?" _Why not today, since you're so surprised I want to come in?_

"Yes, miss…?"

"Oh, I'm Keilyn. Keilyn Pelargic."

"Very well, Miss Pelargic. And the company you represent?"

"Company?"

"Yes. You _did_ say you were here on business, did you not?"

"Oh! Right. Um. It's Interstellar Securities Limited. Based on Lynx. My boss is the CEO, and he said I had to come here and talk to you guys as soon as I could."

"Your superior must be very well connected. We don't have many clients on Lynx."

"Well, I guess you kinda gotta be connected to be a CEO, right?"

"A valid assumption, Miss Pelargic. Very well; we await your arrival at two PM in two days."

"Thanks _so_ much," Kim enthused. "Bye!"

"Farewell."

When the screen winked off, Kim slumped back in the chair. "I _hate_ sounding like a giggling idiot!" she whined to herself, but she had to giggle at how much it looked like she'd thrown the salesman. She sobered quickly, though, realizing that she had two full days at her disposal now.

_Time for some studying,_ she thought, and grabbed up her operation notes. _Don't wanna mess this up_.

--

A/N: I don't like this chapter. Nothing really happens, which made it a pain in the ass to write. At least it's short to decrease the pain.

Yes, stuff is going to happen. Yes, it will happen soon. Please bear with me.

And yes, I'm also aware that I don't write spy stuff all that well. It's better than it used to be, though.


	3. Chapter 3

The Chains That Break

by

Ken-Zero

Disclaimer: Kim Possible and all related characters are property of Disney; the Honorverse, its characters, and its concepts are property of David Weber and BAEN Books.

Pre-A/N: Last boring chapter, so bear with me. Next chapter, we'll see Things start to happen.

--

3

The room they sat in was well-lit and ventilated, and yet still managed to give the impression of being shady and cigarette-smoke-filled.

The table they sat around was well-maintained and polished, and yet still managed to give the impression of considerable age and wear.

The chairs they sat in were padded and comfortable, contoured to fit their bodies, yet they sat on the very edges of their seats, each one erect and rigid.

The room's general atmosphere was one of nervousness and paranoia, in spite of the pleasant décor and climate-controlled air.

There were six people sitting in the chairs at the table in the room. Four of them were fidgeting nervously, trading worried glances, while the sixth, who was sitting closest to the room's lone door, remained almost surreally calm.

That sixth person, a man by the name of Lester McDalmon, folded his hands together and laid them on the table. "Well," he said, "who wants to go first?"

The remaining five traded glances before a frail-looking woman with straight dull-brown hair raised a hand.

"Are you sure we're doing this the right way?" she asked. Even her voice sounded like it was ready to break.

"Of course I'm not, Amy," Lester responded. "That's why this is called a 'risk.' You ought to know that; you're all investors, after all. That said, I've already taken steps to ensure that this risk will have the smallest number of risks possible. For _all_ our necks."

"Like what?" The question, delivered in a belligerent tone, came from a powerfully-built man across the table from Lester, one Anthony Enviren.

"Like choosing a different, unrelated facility for our program. And hiring new, unrelated scientists." He spread his hands in an approximation of a shrug. "The only thing really _risky_ here is that I copied some of the procedural and material data to the new place. If they can track that, we'll be in trouble."

"And if they do, what then?" Anthony pressed.

"We go to ground," Lester replied easily, again using his almost-shrug. "And since we live here and they don't, it's a simple matter of getting from point A to point B before slipping away."

"It's not _that_ simple," a woman at Lester's left clarified, facing the rest of the room, "but it's close." She had black hair pulled back rather severely into a low ponytail, but her brown eyes were much softer than her expression would have suggested. She was Lynn Zigby, and she usually ran some sort of damage control when Lester's mouth got away from him—like now. "Still, we _can_ hide. And I've already set up a half-dozen false IDs we can use if things go south."

"Will that be enough?" the frail woman pressed. She looked afraid that their little operation was going to fail even before it really began.

"It will be _more_ than enough, Amy," Lester replied, and all present could hear his patience wearing thin.

Amy Keri swallowed nervously before nodding. She didn't try to speak again, in spite of her still-many reservations.

"Anyone else?" Lester demanded. Silence met his question, and he folded his arms across his chest. "Good. Now. On to the plan."

Lynn took her rather obvious cue and ran with it. "The plan is this: we cheat Manpower and break into this business on our own."

"It can't be that easy," protested a third man, seated down the table from Amy.

"I didn't say it would be easy, Marcus" Lynn corrected calmly. "But it's _simple_. Plans that are too complex can fall apart—too many moving parts, as it were." She brushed a strand of hair from her face before continuing, addressing the whole table. "We're all in this for the money—even you, Marcus. And let's not kid ourselves; this won't be easy. But when we pull it off, we're going to be worth a _lot_."

Marcus Khovaskar raised a hand. "What will make us so different from Manpower?"

"Manpower won't do certain…body styles, shall we say," Lester put in. "They stick with the profitable. We'll do those plus the niches—the ones people will pay _lots_ more for."

"And you're sure there's a demand for those?"

"Why, absolutely. Just yesterday we had a visitor from off-planet arrive; we know her itinerary involves coming here to check out our production facilities, and she's looking for a certain type for her boss back on Lynx." Lester grinned. "I think we can suitably wow her with what we've got already; laying the promise of better models in the future on her should mean we've got a returning customer."

"But what do we _have_ to show her?" Amy asked.

"We've got the standard line from Manpower," Lynn answered. "Plus there's a pleasure line we've been working on here for the last year or so that's actually a lot different from the models Manpower offers."

"How so?" It was Anthony asking this time.

"For one, the techs don't rape them from birth to sale date," Lynn answered dryly. "They've been programmed to be physically flawless, and they've got enhanced pheromonal control."

"You're saying they can _choose_ when to feel aroused?"

"Not really _when_…but when they _are_ aroused, the control they have over their bodies is finer than a normal human's, so that they can ride herd on their impulses and actually _avoid_ sending any 'signals,' as it were, or they can ramp it up and really drive their owner wild."

"Fascinating," Marcus put in, "but what's the application?"

"They feel less like a sex slave and more like a willing partner…in spite of that small fact that they really _are_ sex slaves," Lester answered.

Everyone else but Lynn winced. Lester was usually good at remaining somewhat tactful, but when he felt like he was explaining a concept down to three-year-olds, he turned quite blunt.

After a moment of silence, Marcus asked, "What did you name that line?"

"The G-Fortune line," Lynn answered.

The group considered the name for a moment. Normally, a line of genetic slaves was named after the lead engineer who designed them…but then, as they were planning a break from the people who followed that convention, it made a sort of sense to abandon anything and everything that could possibly tie them together.

"Well enough," Marcus said eventually. "Now. Are you _sure_ Mesa won't get wind of this?"

Lester grinned thinly, barely showing his teeth. "Let's just say that their informants are…already taken care of."

Amy gasped, her hands darting over her mouth. "You didn't…_kill_ them, did you?"

Lynn couldn't help but chuckle. "No, no he didn't. Ladies and gentlemen, you're _looking_ at the informant." She gestured to her right.

For another second, confusion reigned. Then she could see understanding dawn around the table…and even panic in a face or two as Marcus practically leapt out of his seat.

Before he had a chance to put any accusations to voice, though, Lester pinned him in place with a steely glare. "Sit. Down," he growled, his voice dangerously controlled. When the rest of the table obeyed, he nodded. "Better. Now. Did you really think I called you all here to turn you in?" He snorted. "Why do you think I chose you to be the initial investors? If I'd wanted you captured I'd have reported you ages ago when I knew how much you chafed working for the lazy bastards who run Manpower. This is a chance to make it _on our own_, without having any overlords to report to and take our money away if we don't do what they like." He grinned again, this time showing a bit more genuine amusement. "As long as I tell them what they want to hear, we have nothing to worry about."

Slowly the stricken looks faded, and Lynn hid a smile. She and Lester had planned that little bombshell for the last couple of weeks, ever since they first "discussed" separating from Manpower…in bed.

"Remember," Lester added, "we don't want Manpower to look _too_ bad, because we still will need there to be a demand for our slaves. We just need to make ourselves look _better_: smaller company, more agile, better able to respond to demand, and all that. We'll be the specialty to their mass production, so if people come with specific demands, we can match it. Manpower won't do that. And as I said earlier, _that_ is what will bring in the big bucks."

There was silence as the rest of the table digested what Lester said. The plan was, of course, risky; heads began to nod, though, as they recalled what he'd said only a few minutes before about great risks yielding great rewards.

"What happens if we're found out?" Marcus finally asked.

"If we can't eliminate the problem, we make ourselves scarce," Lynn answered. "Just as I said earlier. Believe me when I say we're not all that interested in losing your assets—_or_ you."

When the small assemblage nodded once more, Lester leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his chest. "Then I think our business here is done, my friends." As they rose, he added, "Oh, and that customer coming in tomorrow? Have her be the test case. Try and push that defective G-Fortune on her. She doesn't have to know it's broken, at least. If she'll take it, we'll be in the clear."

--

Kim Possible dug through the supplies she'd received for her mission on Orthua, verifying that everything she'd been assigned had made the trip in one piece. She knew she needn't have worried; the items' materials were advanced enough to be nearly invulnerable to most mundane dangers like weather, water, shock, and the like. Still, her time at Saganami Island had taught her to take nothing for granted…which is why she decided to take apart the back side of what looked like an old picture frame.

The frame came apart easily, like it should; buried inside the plentiful electronics were two extra pieces of specialized circuitry, each one an innocuous design on its own…but paired together, made a handy, if unconventional, tool.

Kim snorted gently. _Since when are _any_ spy toys conventional?_

She reassembled the frame and placed it on a waist-high table by the entrance to her hotel room. Switching it on, it began to display photos of scenic vistas from a world she didn't recognize—_Probably Lynx_, she thought—while the extra parts on the inside blanketed the small living space in a decent-grade sound suppression field. Kim smiled; it would take a serious piece of military hardware to pierce that veil, and she could always explain it away as a sleep aid.

"Speaking of sleep…" she mumbled, one hand rising to cover a yawn that had attacked at the mere thought of the word. She selected an outfit from the clothes she had brought with her, hanging it up to let the material straighten itself out, and got herself ready for bed.

--

A/N: Geh. This was even boring to _write_. I can't imagine how you must feel trying to read it. Sadly, though, it was necessary to even have a chance to understand half of what will come.


	4. Chapter 4

The Chains that Break

By

Ken-Zero

Disclaimer: Kim Possible, et al., are owned by Disney; the Honorverse and its associated copyrights are owned by David Weber and BAEN Books. Otherwise, characters are my creation.

--

4

She couldn't believe the noise.

Kim Possible winced slightly as she walked with her official guide through the corridors of the Manpower facility. The air was rigidly temperature-controlled—she hadn't felt it change one degree since walking in—but it was quite humid, and she felt herself already starting to sweat. The walls themselves were painted a plain blue, with dark gray carpeting underfoot, and the sheer number of lights in the ceiling obliterated any chance of shadows being cast. The material of the walls, plus their straight construction, did little to abate the sounds she heard, and the cacophony of shouts, taunts, curses, and hoots only grew louder the farther she walked.

The guide, meanwhile, was pleasantly chatting away about the history of Manpower in general and this facility in particular, and Kim forced herself to pay attention and act appropriately wowed even as she tried to memorize as many details as she possibly could. Tellingly, they never passed through any unmarked doors, a fact Kim found slightly odd. None of the doors were particularly ostentatious, but every door that they used was clearly marked, almost like it was equally for the guide's benefit as for hers.

She was just planning how to get in on another tour and get "lost" when they went through one last doorway…and Kim almost fell over from the wall of sheer noise.

Hundreds of people were crammed together in the immediate area, all of them presumably clamoring to be the loudest and get his voice heard. Kim assumed it had something to do with the slips of paper in their hands.

Her suspicions were borne out as the guide approached the teeming numbers, sliding the two of them through deftly; the gamblers simply moved out of their way. As they approached the far end of the walkway, Kim could see the place open up like a huge arena, the telltale counter-grav units on the ceiling holding it up with little to no physical support. A metal fence about waist-high warded anyone from falling over the edge, though the gamblers were pressed up against it and, in places, leaning dangerously over it. The place had absolutely no contact with the outside world; not even a single window or skylight allowed any sunlight in, and given how quiet it had been outside that morning, there wasn't a stray sound that escaped the walls. Below them, a floor full of fully artificial turf reminded Kim of a sports stadium, except there wasn't a single painted line of any sort on it that she could see.

Movement farther across the field caught her eye, and her breath caught in her throat when she looked. Even the noise faded away to almost nothing.

Two people darted towards and away from each other, and from the look of things Kim could easily tell it wasn't for fun. Indeed, a brief flash of reflected light indicated one of the two had a weapon of some sort. The other was unarmed, as there was no telltale ring of clashing metal.

It didn't seem to matter, though; in spite of the unarmed combatant's thick black ponytail swishing about, Kim could see clearly enough that she could identify the unarmed style she—and between the hair and the form-fitting bodysuit, it was most definitely a she—was using…and she was using it to supremely devastating effect.

The opponent—Kim guessed it was a man—leaped in with a sweeping horizontal slash, his weapon held in two hands, and quicker than Kim had thought possible he brought it back in the opposite direction, just in time to catch the woman as she lunged in to take advantage of the miss. She, in turn, brought up a knee, catching the man's wrist with it and knocking his return slash up so it whistled just over her head. Having turned the sure hit into a bare miss, she continued her short advance.

Kim inhaled when she saw the style change; between her childhood hobbies and her later training at Saganami, she was well-versed enough in hand-to-hand fighting to recognize almost every popular style—and some that went back millennia. This was one of those times: the woman out there had just shifted into Old Earth's kung fu from _coup de vitesse_, the style used by the RMN's military, and Kim watched as she delivered an open-handed strike that knocked the sword wielder back a few feet. She followed up with a spinning kick to his shoulder, causing him to drop one hand from his blade, and her momentum carried her around as she dropped and swept his feet out from under him. She stepped forward, posting one foot on his chest, and he slapped the ground.

The voices around Kim suddenly redoubled in noise, some cheering, most making noises of dismay and disappointment, but Kim couldn't care less. She was staring down at the winning combatant, sure that, despite the detail-obscuring effects of distance, there was…_something_…different about her.

Kim's guide interrupted her musings. "Something wrong?"

"What…" Kim almost didn't find her voice. "What _was_ that?"

"That was a competition," he said, his tone turning somewhat smug. "A line particular to our division, these models are born and bred to fight."

"Why?" She tried to keep as much of the horror she felt out of her tone as she could.

The guide merely swept an arm around, indicating the mob around them. "Isn't it obvious? None of these people are paid to be here. This is something fun to watch, to take their minds off their regular lives. It's just like any other sport."

_Except these aren't athletes paid to entertain,_ she thought darkly, again trying to keep her expression innocently open. "Oh, I get it now…say, do you think my boss would want one?"

The guide blinked. Apparently, Kim thought with an internal smirk, he wasn't anticipating a question like that…or at least, not so early.

"That depends," he said finally. "What was he looking for from us?"

"He didn't really say," she said, before leaning in to add in a conspiratorial whisper, "but I think he's looking for fun, since he's already got all the regular employees he needs. You know—something to take his mind off his regular life."

The guide nodded in full understanding, a lazy smirk once again spreading across his features. "Then I think we have _just_ what he's looking for. Follow me, please."

--

The Product Inspection Area was as intimidating as Kim thought it would be.

A featureless, furniture-less, brightly-lit, white room, its only concessions to color were the display units mounted on the walls. The room itself had several sides, though Kim couldn't place the geometric shape. Each wall, save the two that contained doors, featured one of the large screens, and each screen proclaimed the features and virtues of the various "models" of human produced by Manpower. Kim actually had to fight to contain a shiver; the concept of marketing a human being like this was so foreign that it rather frightened her.

A few feet away, her guide was talking and gesturing at the first display to their left. "We have, of course, several varieties available, but from what you said earlier I think we can narrow your boss' selection down to two or three models." As he spoke, the display changed, and all but three of the people on the screen vanished. Those that remained spun slowly, giving her a chance to see them from all sides.

"The first one is what you just saw; it's our pride and joy, and from the crowd out there, it certainly sounds like there's something of a demand." This model, a man, looked excruciatingly sculpted, like he was a statue come to life. The sheer definition of some of his musculature looked positively alien, and Kim wondered what kind of regimens kept him in that kind of shape. His face looked normal enough, even if it was slightly angular, and he had short-cropped blond hair, but there was no hair to speak of anywhere else—not even some unsightly stubble on his chin. _Between the drugs and the biosculpt these guys must cost a fortune._

Her guide waited for Kim to stop staring before moving on to the next. This one was female, and while she wasn't wearing anything too exposing, Kim could see the general lines of her body shape. She was built like some of the more popular tri-d stars of the day, all wasp-waisted with an impressive bustline and perfectly smooth facial features. "This is our basic pleasure model, trained from an early age in every art imaginable—and I'm not just talking about sex. Massages, painting, instruments, singing, all that and more."

"Kind of like geishas," Kim muttered quietly.

His eyebrows arched. "Very good," he said approvingly. "A student of Old Earth?"

"It was a hobby, way back," she answered sheepishly, a blush spreading across her cheeks.

"I see you haven't lost it," he nodded. "But yes, very much like that. They exist solely for your entertainment. And while sex may _not_ be all they do," he added, his voice dropping to mirror her whisper from earlier, "they're very, _very_ good at it." He smiled when Kim's blush only intensified.

"And finally," he said, straightening up, "we've got—"

"The first one," Kim interrupted.

"Excuse me?"

"I…um…I think he'd like one of the first ones best." Her face was still red.

"…Oh. Very well, then." His presentation thus closed, the displays returned to their normal state and he led Kim out the only other door in the room.

A short walk brought them down some stairs and to a sealed door. The door hissed open after her guide typed a command string into an attached keypad, present a large chamber in front of them. The chamber itself was decorated like a house would be, right down to the floor having carpet in some places and bare wood in others. There were doors everywhere along the walls, but the main area was a large open space littered with furniture. It was a huge contrast to the previous room, but it still felt…artificial to Kim. _They're forcing it to feel homey._

Wandering through the area were several people, each of whom looked to be a physically perfect specimen. None of them totally resembled either model she'd seen up in the display room, but it was easy enough to tell these were the fighters; all of them looked solid and moved with enough self-assured grace that Kim had no doubt they were some of the toughest she'd ever seen. Still, none of them had affected any sort of air of arrogance since she'd come in, and Kim knew that was because, creature comforts aside, they were still obviously slaves.

She moved away from the guide, and he made no move to stop her; emboldened, she walked slowly into the living area, her eyes wide. Unwittingly she slid into something resembling a defensive stance from her own kung fu training; she could feel the dulled hostility in the air, and it was making her subconscious nervous.

Several of the slaves looked her way and smirked gently when they noticed how she moved; warriors could always recognize warriors, even through a disguise, and especially when one gave it away as obviously as Kim was doing.

Kim blinked when she noticed the small smiles, confused for a moment. Then a small ache in a tense muscle in her back notified her of exactly how she was standing, and she straightened just a hair, blushing again.

Just then one of the doors opened, and a woman wearing only a towel stepped out of a room. Steam billowed out from behind her until she shut the door.

Kim's blush instantly burned hotter than ever; that towel left very little to her imagination. Something about her clicked; it must have been the damp, waist-length black hair, but Kim realized she was looking at the woman who had just triumphed up in the…_Coliseum, I guess. Not much of a better word for it._

She knew she was staring, but she couldn't stop for two reasons. The first was the woman's skin was very pale, almost like the old tales of albinos from back before the condition had been eliminated…but it wasn't just pale. Kim could easily see, now, what had bothered her slightly while upstairs.

_She's green. Her_ skin_ is _green.

The second reason for the staring was that, greenness aside, the woman was _very_ attractive, and between the small towel and the way she walked, she knew it.

"Hey, Shego," the slave closest to Kim called to her, receiving a wave in reply. "How'd it go?"

"I won again," the green woman said in simple reply. She even shrugged.

Most of the other fighters simply chuckled. Kim blinked. _Again? Just how often does she fight?_

Before she could ask, though, the woman—Shego, she'd been called—disappeared into another door, but not before Kim caught a glimpse of a small room. She'd seen a bed, which was enough to know that most of the doors were some kind of quarters. When the door slid shut, she let out a breath she didn't even know she was holding.

Turning, she went back to the guide. "Can…can I come back tomorrow? I have to ask my boss exactly what he's looking for and make sure I don't screw up what he wants, because if I do then I might be fired and if I get fired then what would I do because I wouldn't have a job and no job means no spending money and no spending money means I—"

The guide's frantic waving snapped her out of the nervous ranting that Kim hoped he couldn't tell was forced.

"Of course," he said, escorting her up the stairs. She didn't say much on the way out except to thank him for the tour and confirm her return tomorrow, leaving the facility deep in thought.

--

"So?" Shego asked as she exited her cramped room, not a minute after Kim and her guide had left.

"So what?" the same slave that had called her out earlier asked.

"Who was she?"

"The redhead? Dunno. Probably a client." His tone belied his words, though.

"You don't believe that."

"Not really. Did you see how she moved?"

"Not really. Why?"

"She walked exactly like you do," the slave answered.

Shego considered this for a moment. "You actually think that waif can fight, Patrick?"

Patrick shrugged. "Who knows? But she walked in here and looked like the first person to touch her would end up on the floor."

"But she's so scrawny!"

"She's not that much shorter than you," Patrick disagreed. "And you don't need to be _too_ strong to use leverage."

"Whatever," Shego waved it off. "Why are we talking about this anyway?"

"I dunno," Patrick replied, shrugging. "But she's a live one. I've got a gut feeling."

"You sure that's not indigestion?"

--

Kim couldn't shake the nagging feeling that something was way off as she walked back to her hotel from the Manpower facility. From what she knew, Manpower itself didn't dabble in anything other than "service products." None of their slaves were designed to be anything like that fight she'd seen earlier…

Her thoughts wandered back to the greenish woman that had won that fight. The way the woman moved was simply spectacular; she hadn't been necessarily smooth, but it looked like she moved just enough to accomplish what she wanted to do without going even an inch further. She'd barely ducked around the sword slashes directed at her; she'd delivered enough force to her hits to carry through to _just_ behind the man; she'd only exaggerated her movement right at the end, standing with one foot posted on his chest…and the kick to the guy's shoulder! Somehow she'd put enough force into it to make him lose his grip. It wasn't a move Kim had ever considered using on her own before, but in retrospect it seemed a glaringly obvious tactic to use against someone armed.

_And then I got to see her up close_…

Kim let loose a dreamy sigh before she could stop herself. Still, she told herself, it wasn't unwarranted; the woman was almost unfairly attractive, with or without the slight green tint to her skin. _I wonder if I could take her away from here when we leave…_

Lost in her thoughts, she never noticed the two people following her. And even if she had, she stood very little chance of seeing the third one, watching her leave from the safety of an open upper-floor window.

Lester McDalmon rubbed his chin as he watched her leave. Curled around his shoulders, an orangey-red-furred, six-limbed treecat yawned lazily, preening its whiskers just like the felines of Old Earth.

He reached up a hand to stroke his 'cat's head. "She's a live one," he mumbled. The semi-psychic link he shared with the 'cat had alerted him earlier to the fact that the redheaded visitor's mind was a _lot_ busier than her airheaded appearance let on, but it was all he could do to understand the sometimes-jumbled feelings he received through their bond.

"What do you think, Roughhouse?" he asked. His 'cat made a dismissive sound without opening its mouth, and he got a distinct impression that the 'cat thought the visitor's mental antics were fairly uninteresting.

Lester had found Roughhouse only a couple of years ago; treecats were native to Sphinx, in the Star Kingdom of Manticore, but every once in a while—as in, every hundred years or so—a smuggler would succeed in bringing one off-world without the Sphinxian equivalent to the Forest Rangers finding out until it was too late. That had been the case with Roughhouse, except the 'cat had rejected the first person to try and "own" it. They behaved very similarly to normal cats in that respect; once a treecat calmed down, it pretty much owned its "master," and not the other way around. Their physical similarity to regular cats was also almost complete, with the main difference being size and limb count. Treecats had six limbs, the front two of which had shockingly similar appendages to human hands, while the middle pair of limbs were a kind of blend between hand and foot. Treecats also massed nearly twice as much as regular cats, and could grow to well over a meter in length from nose to tail.

Stories abounded of the 'cats well-known in the Kingdom; Lester had seen a large number of news bites concerning the Manties' Honor Harrington and her 'cat, and of course the Queen of Manticore had a 'cat of her own, as well. As well, scientists had been studying them for decades, trying to discern just how intelligent the species truly was—and how their empathic link truly worked. It was that last feature that had attracted Lester to Roughhouse when he'd first seen the 'cat. They'd linked almost instantly, and Lester had used his knowledge of people's mental states to get where he was today.

Right now, he wasn't sure what to make of that redheaded visitor's mind. It was busy, sure…but from what he could tell, she was excited, somewhat aroused—a not-uncommon state when around his pleasure slaves, that was for sure—a bit confused, and worried. It was an interesting mix…and not something he felt suited a mere corporate secretary, even one whose boss was presumably trying to keep this transaction under the table.

"She'll bear watching, I think," he mumbled to himself, making a mental note to have her place bugged when next she visited.

--

A/N: Finally.

Special, huge, and heartfelt thanks to LoveRobin for being a freaking _amazing_ help at getting this story running again.

I did just finish a probationary period at a new job, so I think I'll be a bit more in the clear for writing.


	5. Chapter 5

The Chains That Break

By

Ken-Zero

Disclaimer: As always, the universes here are not my own. I can only take credit for some original characters and the plot.

--

5

It was the beginning of another day.

Kim reflected briefly on how the past weeks had gone; she'd certainly been busy enough in her cover to have even her believing the false identity. Reports to Colonel Briggins, coded in the form of slightly nervous status updates to Keilyn Pelargic's boss, usually got responses that warned her against spending too much of her time on the "company-paid business trip" slacking off and being a tourist. She knew they meant trying to avoid blowing her cover, but…

Frankly, she didn't want to tell the Colonel that her cover had already _been_ blown. Sort of.

She thought back to her fourth visit to the "slave quarters" inside the Manpower facility. It had been…enlightening, in a couple of ways.

No sooner had she stepped into the place than the door closed behind her again, cutting the guide off. She stepped forward a bit, relaxing only somewhat. It still felt like she was walking into a room of sullen hostility, even if nothing ever happened.

One of the slaves had finally called her on it. "You know, you can stop pretending for a second."

"Huh?"

"The 'innocent office worker' act. It was cute at first, but it's old now."

Kim frowned, confused—or at least presenting confusion to the outside. Inside, she was near panic. _Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap!_

"What do you mean?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

"Look, every time you walk in, you get all tense and take up a stance. Plus you're always looking for exits. It's a little more than obvious that you're not just some corp flack."

It must have shown that Kim was more than a little surprised—not just at being busted, but that they were being so straightforward with her—because the same man who'd been talking to her snorted.

"Yeah, they 'let' us be a little more straightforward. Something to do with that making it easier for us to try and beat the snot out of the other guy."

Assorted chuckles let Kim know everyone else in the room was paying attention, whether or not they were directly _looking _at her.

"If you're so sure," she said, trying even now to maintain some semblance of her cover, "why haven't you done anything about it?"

She got another snort. "You think that would change anything?"

"Well…" she blushed. "No, not really…"

"Precisely. So, in spite of that total lack of self-interest, I have to ask…what the hell are you doing in this dump?"

Still not entirely sure that she was safe, Kim had nonetheless managed to concoct some sort of fib that held just enough truth to be believable—something about how she was actually sent to inspect the business types who ran the place, what they were expecting by offering this offshoot line, and so on. She rambled enough that she wasn't even sure she bought it—that, and her history of being a pathologically bad liar—but the man who'd busted her hadn't really pushed for more beyond that. She hadn't really gotten any extra information out of them at that point, not that it mattered to her, personally. Still, figuring it would save her cover with the people she was really there to spy on, she spent the next few visits determining what combat styles each of them knew.

The results were somewhat amazing. Each of them knew several, but the company had clearly designed them to certain ends. Derrik, the one whom she usually spoke to, gravitated toward armed combat, preferring a single weapon, usually bladed. A handful of the others were the same way. Others still used large, two-handed items, ranging from bastard- and greatswords to polearms, quarterstaves, and the like. Some—all of whom were lean and wiry, moving with significant grace—she was told favored a short weapon in each hand, usually paired items.

One, she was told, actually preferred a spear and net. That combination tickled something in her memory, but she couldn't recall what it was for the life of her.

Of the rest, they held "interests" in the various unarmed combat styles humanity had developed over its multi-thousand-year quest of killing each other. Kim even managed to finagle one of them into a discussion about the various styles of kung fu they knew between the two of them.

Still, not once during those visits did she see that Shego woman again, which was something of a disappointment for Kim. As she was the only one Kim had actually seen fight, she kind of wanted to know more. _Like why she's green_…

She would get her chance two days later.

--

"So how do you make sure they don't…you know…get out?" Kim asked her guide.

After nearly three weeks, she had come and gone enough times that she was recognizable on sight by the greeters, who knew to fetch the guide—Abram, she's learned his name was—when they saw her approaching. Part of that familiarity helped Kim, as it made her considerably less nervous—less absolutely sure that they were going to see right through her, as it were. It also seemed to butter her guide up, and she'd tested just how far she could go in terms of questions as time went on. The more things she asked, the more he seemed to open up, especially when it sounded like she was so genuinely interested.

Abram took the opportunity to gesture at the walls. "There is enough built-in monitoring in this building that, should there ever be the unlikely occurrence of a revolt of any sort, it can be put down quickly and effectively. We have automated defenses lining just about every corridor, and should we ever have the need, we can call in the local police for some extra firepower. We have very little to fear, really, as none of them are even within sight distance of a firearm of any sort. Even all their training would do them little good, especially in the hallways; there is no exit from the arena, and there are only two ways in or out from their quarters—to the arena, and the way you go to…visit."

"You don't think I should?" She made sure to look extra-pathetic, pouting as heavily as she could. It was a trick her mother used to pull on her, and damned if it didn't instantly guilt Kim into doing whatever her mother wanted. She figured, as a fairly desperate corporate secretary type (in effect, if not in fact), if it helped get what her "boss" wanted, it was worth the embarrassment.

Abram, of course, fell victim to the Pout instantly. "Oh, far from it! That old mantra about the customer always being right is an 'old mantra' for a reason, you know!" That he was already leading her to that exact area just made it more amusing to Kim.

"So basically, you don't worry about them going nuts, because it's suicide if they do," Kim surmised, wincing internally. _That kinda puts a crimp in anything I could plan…_

"You could certainly put it that way, yes. We prefer to believe that they realize it's better they live here than try to outside; they are capable of such violence, you see—well, you've seen the fights—that it would be a shame to endanger the populace with their like."

It took more effort than usual for Kim to hide her disgust with Abram's self-righteous justification for keeping the slaves pent up in a hole in the ground. _For God's sake, they don't even see _daylight! _Ever!_

Thankfully, she only had to keep the façade up for about a minute; at that point, they reached the Door (Kim had come to regard it with a capital D after the first week). Abram opened it like he always did, allowing Kim in with a nod, and she forced out a smile for him before stepping past.

She had all of a second's warning before another body came flying through the air straight in her direction; she barely heard the door latch behind her as she threw herself to one side just in time to avoid the crash.

She landed flat on her stomach, breath whooshing out from the impact, but she avoided any contact. She scrambled back to her feet, part of her automatically assessing the scene while she tried to calm herself from the sudden adrenaline rush.

The very center of the room was bare, the furniture pushed out of the way to make a sort of impromptu half-ring. Straightening from a hunched posture was one of the women Kim knew preferred a more defensive style, something like Old Earth's _judo_.

And rising from a heap where Kim had just vacated was none other than Shego.

Nicola, the other combatant, frowned. "Just stay down," she harrumphed.

"Like hell," Shego returned, getting back into her own stance. She looked quite less than pleased. She stalked over to the half-ring again, got set, and attacked once more.

This time was…different from what Kim saw in the ring those few weeks ago. Nicola was on the defensive, for one, and Shego was downright reckless. As Kim watched, she got thrown again after just a few seconds. Just like before, she got right back up and attacked, only to be thrown a third time, and a fourth. By that point, both combatants were breathing heavily, and Kim could see a handful of discolored spots on Shego's pale green skin that she had to assume were bruises.

Just as she was wondering if the fight was over, Kim saw Shego give herself a shake and then advance on Nicola—not in a charge this time, but methodically. Her expression was set in concentration. As Kim watched, the fight began again, but this time there was no recklessness…and the display rivaled some of the more intense demonstrations she'd seen from her own training. Fists and feet flew furiously, and every so often she heard the dull thud of a strike slipping past a guard and connecting.

And then, with a suddenness that bordered on the comical, the fight was over. Both Shego and Nicola smashed a fist into each other's head, and each one spun away from the force of the blow. The difference was, Nicola appeared to have been completely knocked out…while Shego, dazed, was nevertheless attempting to pull herself up off the floor.

Kim didn't even think. She ran over to Shego's side and dropped to her knees, offering a stable arm or shoulder in silence.

The fighter took the proffered support without speaking, which surprised Kim somewhat. She also noticed that Shego's hands were extremely warm, bordering on the uncomfortable; the sensation only lasted a few seconds, though, because once Shego had gotten her feet back under her, she shoved off of Kim and stood on wobbly legs.

"Thanks," the brunette mumbled.

"You're welcome," Kim smiled, blushing just slightly from the proximity. Internally she was warning herself. _Don't get all schoolgirl-giddy, Kim, or they'll think you're bonkers._

"Nice dive back there, Pumpkin" Shego commented, regaining enough of her senses to smirk and assume a casual posture. "They teach you to go down like that at spook school?"

Kim blinked away the mental images that last sentence generated. "Huh?" she asked intelligently.

The greenish woman shook her head, smirk still in place. "Never mind. Clearly I'm not the only one who got rattled in that fight."

Kim blushed again, though she did note that Shego seemed to not even be breathing hard any more. And now that Kim thought about it—and stared when Shego wasn't looking—she could see the bruises from Nicola's blows were far too light-colored for as fresh as they were.

And then Shego was walking away, no trace of a limp or shudder marring her gait.

Kim continued to stare after her. Obviously, if the fighter knew Kim was a spy of any sort, then they all talked about her while she wasn't here; she knew Shego hadn't been present during any of her other visits save the very first. Also obviously, the woman had a sizeable ego in spite of her circumstances; why else tag a complete stranger with a nickname in her first complete spoken sentence?

All of that, along with the woman's remarkable ability to shrug off a no-holds-barred brawl like she'd done, meant Kim had a lot to think about…and a bit more than usual to put into her report.

--

"…and they all seem to be pretty healthy, in all respects," Kim finished, two days later, with another light blush on her cheeks.

It helped, she thought, to sell the illusion of her cover identity if she allowed some of her real emotions to leak through once in a while. And the thought of how just how "healthy" most of the slaves were, was what prompted the genuine blush, cover story or otherwise.

She watched her report again, confirming that she'd put everything in that she could think of, and closed the file, sending it on its way to her "boss's" desk. Then it came to the hardest part of the whole operation: the waiting. She had another couple of days before she could expect a message back at the absolute earliest, which meant her time was her own for the most part. Inspiration struck, and she rooted around in her clothes for appropriate gym wear.


End file.
